‘Star Trek: Discovery’: How Tig Notaro Best Embodied Starfleet’s Values in Season 2

“Star Trek” has a history of bringing in unexpected stars, all drawn to the franchise by their passion for the source material.

And with the latest iteration, “Star Trek: Discovery,” that tradition has continued in a number of respects, but none more interesting than the casting of Tig Notaro as engineer Jett Reno, introduced in the first episode of Season 2 and who proved to be a delightful presence over the course of the following episodes.Notaro is best known as a stand-up comic whose riffs on her cancer battle and pop culture ephemera eventually led to the critically-acclaimed Amazon series “One Mississippi,” which ran for two seasons before its unfortunate cancelation.

Her low-key but raw and honest work in “One Mississippi” was not one that might obviously lead to an appearance on the newest edition of the sci-fi icon, but she happened to have a decades-old relationship with “Discovery” showrunner Alex Kurtzman,